Qualla: Ypey Mole, Ryptsjerk

Ypey Mole, Ryptsjerk: Introduction

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Taks, Public domain. One November day in 1970, some children walked up to Ypey Mole at its old site near Zwartewegsend, and set the thatched smock on fire. They were probably not trying to destroy a Rijksmonument — they were children — but a thatched windmill is essentially a tall haystack with machinery inside, and arson is arson. The local fire brigade arrived in time. The mill burned, but did not finish burning. It was patched up. Eleven years later it was disassembled, hauled across the polders to Ryptsjerk, and put back together on a new site, where it still stands and still pumps water. Ypey Mole has had a more eventful century than most buildings get.

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Image: Taks | Public domain

Ypey Mole, Ryptsjerk: A Mill Built in 1858

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Elmo87 at Dutch Wikipedia, Public domain. Ypey Mole began as a polder drainage mill near Zwartewegsend, completed in 1858 — the era when most of rural Friesland's small water-management mills were going up to replace older, weaker predecessors. It is a *grondzeiler*, the Dutch term for a smock mill set so low that its sa...

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Image: Elmo87 at Dutch Wikipedia | Public domain

Ypey Mole, Ryptsjerk: The November Fire

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Michielverbeek, CC BY-SA 3.0. In November 1970, just over a decade after the De Roos restoration, the children came. The fire they started was caught early, by neighbors or by sharp-eyed villagers — the article does not say exactly how — and the local fire brigade reached the mill in time to stop the blaze be...

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Image: Michielverbeek | CC BY-SA 3.0

Ypey Mole, Ryptsjerk: Moved Across Friesland

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Bruno Rijsman, CC BY-SA 2.0. In 1981 the entire mill was taken down, transported across Friesland to a new site at Ryptsjerk, and reassembled by millwright Tacoma of Stiens. This kind of move is not unusual in the Netherlands — windmills are essentially kits of timber, gearing, and ironwork, designed in an e...

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Image: Bruno Rijsman | CC BY-SA 2.0

Ypey Mole, Ryptsjerk: Lifting Water

Sat, 16 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Willem Adrianus Korpershoek, CC BY-SA 4.0. Stand inside the smock today and you can see the gearing the millwrights have kept turning. The Common sails span 15.30 meters and are carried on a cast-iron windshaft. The windshaft drives the brake wheel, 50 cogs strong, which meshes into the wallower — 31 cogs — at the top of ...

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Image: Willem Adrianus Korpershoek | CC BY-SA 4.0